School Me Please: DragonFly Black and Audirvana Plus

[samer0214]

Hello all,

I am fairly new to my DragonFly Black 1.5 and Audirvana Plus and a little confused.

My current setup is:

- iMac 27" Mid 2011 running High Sierra 10.13.1 (latest version for this hardware) with 32GB RAM
- AudioQuest DragonFly Black 1.5 updated to 1.07 (most current version)
- Parasound Zamp v.3
- KEF C15 speakers

I started by playing music from iTunes, then recently "discovered" Audirvana Plus (trial version for now) and imported my iTunes library to it.

When tracks are played from iTunes (AAC ripped from CD), the Dragonfly's LED is Magenta indicating 96KHz, BUT when I play the EXACT same track from Audirvana, the LED is Green indicating 44.1 KHz sampling.

Please school me on this, as I am now confused. Isn't Audirvana supposed to be one of the "better" players out there?

What is happening? What am I missing?

Thank you.

 

[CallMeMike]

................... snip .......................... I started by playing music from iTunes, then recently "discovered" Audirvana Plus (trial version for now) and imported my iTunes library to it.

When tracks are played from iTunes (AAC ripped from CD), the Dragonfly's LED is Magenta indicating 96KHz, BUT when I play the EXACT same track from Audirvana, the LED is Green indicating 44.1 KHz sampling.

........................... snip .............................

The standard (Red Book) characteristics for CDs is: 16bit/96kHz (bit rate / sample rate). If those tracks have been ripped to (16/24 bit) 96kHz AAC files knowingly you'll need to check that Audirvana's playback set-up is 96 kHz sample rate. The other posibility is that the CD has been ripped to a lesser sample rate and iTunes is set to upsample on playback to 96 kHz while Audirvana is set to run the playback matching the digital file's original bit rate and sample rate. In fewer words: check the characteristics of those digital files (use a very handy small application called Mediainfo, free download and installation) and then decide yourself what you want/need to do...

 

[Nisbeth]

On MacOS you can (=will) preset the output sample rate and the native audio is always up/down-sampled to this frequency (Find the application "Audio Midi setup" under "applications"->"utilities" and check there).

Audirvana and the other players will switch sampling frequency on the fly and as your CD-rips are 16/44.1, that's what you get when you use the player.

 

[samer0214]

iTunes is set to upsample on playback to 96 kHz while Audirvana is set to run the playback matching the digital file's original bit rate and sample rate.

Thanks Mike. The tracks in Audirvana show that they were ripped in AAC 16bit/44.1KHz, and I couldn't find an option in where you can force the player to upsample. I also looked for that option in iTunes and didn't find it. I'll have to dig further into the instructions for both to see where that is.

 

[samer0214]

On MacOS you can (=will) preset the output sample rate and the native audio is always up/down-sampled to this frequency (Find the application "Audio Midi setup" under "applications"->"utilities" and check there).

Audirvana and the other players will switch sampling frequency on the fly and as your CD-rips are 16/44.1, that's what you get when you use the player.

Thanks Nisbeth. Yes, I can change the sampling rate in "Audio Midi Setup" all the way up to 96KHz, but as soon as I launch Audirvana, it forces the sampling rate down to 44.1KHz. Strangely enough (or maybe not so strange) iTunes doesn't do that!

 

[Nisbeth]

That's because Itunes respects the "global" MacOS setting while the aftermarket players do not. Not 100% sure how it works, but they bypass/override the AudioMidi settings and play the tracks with the native resolution.

 

[planet10]

A big improvement in sonics can be had by switching the input to making AIFFs (or even ALAC). The files will take up more space but sound better.

AFAIK ACC is always 16/44 and if the DragonFLy is showing higher then there is an issue there.

It is worth doing all you CDs over again (16 bits/44 kHz). HigherRez files are best sourced from the internet.

I use iTunes + PureMusic on my macMini.

dave
dave

 

[samer0214]

After further reading and digging deeper into Audirvana's menu, I discovered a setting which allows it to upsample the tracks from their native rate.

I'm attaching a picture for those interested. The option is available under Preferences: Audio Filters: Forced Upsampling

 

[CallMeMike]

On MacOS you can (=will) preset the output sample rate and the native audio is always up/down-sampled to this frequency (Find the application "Audio Midi setup" under "applications"->"utilities" and check there).

Audirvana and the other players will switch sampling frequency on the fly and as your CD-rips are 16/44.1, that's what you get when you use the player.

... this why Audirvana is a remarkably superior tool for handling audio files... flexibility (for a price though).